From the opening day of racing on October 1, Alinghi put their hands up as one of the warmest favourites to progress through to the Louis Vuitton Cup race.
That day, they beat French hopefuls Le Defi Areva by 4m 48s and since then it has essentially been plain sailing -at least on the water - for the Swiss syndicate armed with powerful New Zealand sailing nous.
With former Team New Zealand sailors, including Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth, and a stack of world-class sailors on board, Alinghi lived up to the pre-regatta hype.
In the challenger series, they lost just two of their 22 races, one in the first round robin to OneWorld, who set the early pace back in October, and the other to Oracle by 4s in the second round. That doesn't include the two races Prada handed them by defaulting.
Alinghi is the brainchild of Swiss pharmaceutical billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli.
As he returned home from watching the 2000 America's Cup regatta he figured out that winning the Auld Mug was about getting the right people in key areas.
So he picked up his phone.
A cluster of Team New Zealand winners from 2000 jumped ship with Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth, immediately giving the Alinghi challenge plenty of credibility.
Money was not a problem, with the budget estimated at around $120 million.
Alinghi's crew is made up of sailors from 14 nationalities.
The strength of Alinghi's challenge was the knowledge of the Team New Zealand old hands. They know the Hauraki Gulf as well as any sailors in the regatta.
If there is a psychological advantage it will lie with Alinghi.
In the six races between Alinghi and Oracle, the American syndicate have won just one race.
They had their chances in the semifinal but could not grab them.
More of the same over the next week and it will be curtains for Oracle and set up what many thought would happen all along - Coutts v Barker, the master and the apprentice for the big prize.
